


Screaming in the Face of Communication

by papayaromantic



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Child Abuse, Gen, Protective Siblings, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, and he DOESN'T have hearing loss????, graphic description of gore, sounds fake, you're telling me klaus is surrounded by screaming ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-25 13:22:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18262163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papayaromantic/pseuds/papayaromantic
Summary: It's not that he doesn't want to pay attention to Five, just that he seriously can't hear what the boy is saying past the wailing of the torn apart woman in front of him.





	1. Problem Child

Five was in the process of giving a report on his Vanya Power Theories™, which had gotten rather old after the first three “emergency” family meetings. Not that Klaus didn’t care, mind you, but he was absolutely certain that after minute one he wasn’t going to remember a single damned thing. Vanya looks sorry in the corner, for her part, so none of them could really blame the boring meetings on anything but necessity. Of course Klaus knows they’re important and of course he wants to pay attention for the progress of his sister, but there is absolutely nothing he can do other than sit there, hearing nothing.

The dead hate family meetings, he had found out. It was one of the few times the Medium was surrounded by others, and they just seemed distraught at being in the midst of so many people who just had no way to help. There are at least eight bleeding, wailing corpses in the room, but Klaus refuses to count anymore. Ben says it distracts him too much.

They usually congregated around Klaus, somehow instinctively knowing that the boy can hear him. It was always like they were competing in a Who Can Turn Klaus Deaf the Fastest competition, and all of them were always winning. It was neck-and-neck; the torso-less woman attempting to crawl up his legs absolutely screeching out pleas in Russian, while the man with his arm meat exposed and veins dangling to-and-fro like a macabre cuckoo clock wails messages meant for his daughter in Klaus’s ear. The rest are playing their parts in the horrid octet, but they’re more politely scattered around the outskirts of the meeting area, so they might as well be as good as back in their graves.

Even if Klaus wanted to pay attention (which he would never admit to Five, but he does), he can’t.

From the looks of things, Five doesn’t appreciate that.

He can only see a vague, blurry outline of Five’s features given that he has to look straight through BitchFace McScreamy, but what he sees is positively fuming. Using the context clues of Luther’s disappointment and Ben’s confusion, Five is probably talking to him as well.

“Whatever you say, broski!” pipes up Klaus, probably yelling his words along with the ghosts. He was never much good at volume control without the wailing, anyways.

Ben’s expression tells him that was either the wrong thing to say or the wrong time to say it.

“What do—even—here!” Klaus manages to pick up through muffled tones, like Five was speaking from the bottom of an ocean. “Get—don’t give a—serious!”

Klaus tries to look to Ben for more information, but he’s sitting silently along with the rest of his siblings (or, well, he assumes). To be fair, Ben had never really seen Klaus a) sober often, b) in their childhood mansion, which was built right next to a graveyard, c) in the middle of a group of people, or d) sober in their childhood mansion in the middle of a group of people. The deafening level of screaming was rare in cases that were not this one. It just so happened that this exact situation came up a lot in the life of a newly-(re)turned-thirteen year old Hargreeves.

“Can we take the meeting to Griddy’s or something?” Klaus yells into the room. Luckily dear father is on business, or the teen would be giving their position away. It’s why he doesn’t talk at meetings.

“Irresponsible—drugs again after—can’t keep—selfishness.” That was Luther, this time.  _ Can always count on that guy to have your back _ , he considers bitterly.

“I’m sure this is a riveting conversation you’re having with me,” Vanya winces at the noise, and he shoots an apologetic look her way, “but for the death of everyone around me I cannot hear a fucking word you’re saying. I just, if we could just move this to Griddy’s where people die a lot less—,”

“We’re not—!” Klaus thinks Luther is cut off by something other than the yelping man next to him.

“What—you mean?” asks Five, looking more analytical than angry now. Sounds like him.

Now that his siblings are aware he can’t hear them, Klaus is finally allowed the relief of shoving his hands over his ears. The sound quiets only a little, but his shoulders relax at the comforting motion. He knows it’ll only make his own shouting louder, but progress is progress. “What?” he calls, the woman before him going louder in protest. “Not you,” he amends, directing a peeved glare towards her. She hisses.

Some sort of discussion seems to be going on around him because a minute later, Diego is dragging him by the folded arm towards the garage. Klaus keeps his hands on his ears because there are usually at least twenty ghosts in the kitchen, and he doesn’t care much for that bullshit.

There are no ghosts in the car, but a few have almost made it in by the time the last of his family buckles themselves into their seats. Diego takes off in the direction towards Griddy’s and Klaus breathes a sigh of relief. Five clearly thinks he still can’t hear them, so he keeps his hands over his head and lets him believe that. He needs a minute to think of some excuse so they don’t think he’s begging for attention.

When they park, Vanya looks out of place, so Klaus makes a show of following her into the restaurant so she can feel important by leading him. His sight is unimpaired, but he likes the comfort of a familiar (living) body in front of him, so he’s not really faking all that much.

Vanya goads him into a familiar booth; the huge one in the corner they always use for discussing family business. The waitress knows not to come over. Five always goes to the counter to order their usual and gives a big tip for not listening in. The Hargreeves also suspect that Five just likes using up their father’s money.

“Sorry for the relocation, but the meeting may now continue! I’ll provide some wonderful output and you all will tell me to shut up, it’ll be a good time. Now what were we saying? Something about the violin?” Ben looks disapprovingly at his deflection tactics, which he had gotten more than used to over the time they spent glued together.

“No.” Five’s voice is stern. “You’re telling us what’s going on.”

“We’ll listen,” adds Allison after his momentary pause. Her hands are on the table, making her appear more open or something. Ben liked to give him psychology lessons when he was high in protest.

“I just can’t hear you in there.” It’s the most truth he wants to give them at the moment. “It’s totally chill in here, though! You could pillowtalk someone from across the room and I’d probably register  _ all  _ your juicy secrets.”

“We’re thirteen.”

“Not the point, Diego.” Ben looks disappointed in more people than just Klaus, now, which feels like an accomplishment. It probably is. He’s counting it as one. “Is it the ghosts?”

Klaus is stricken by the bluntness of the accusation for a moment. It was obvious, yeah, but everyone else usually forgot that Klaus had powers. They weren’t exactly useful and he  _ did _ spend most of his previous (future?) life attempting to get rid of them, so he didn’t blame his siblings. If he could forget that Klaus had powers too, he would. Realizing that his facial expression had slipped, he quickly drew a goofy smile back on. “I’m sure we can talk more about this when we’ve got some tasty, tasty fried dough in our tummies, so if you all would ex-squeeze me to go and order those, I’ll be…”

Fuck. They had sat Luther right next to him.

Five looks smug, the absolute bastard.

He ends up halfway in Luther’s lap before Allison tells him to sit back down. It isn’t a rumor, but training her powers had given her a commanding tone of voice nonetheless. He tries to let the betrayal show in his eyes when he looks up at Luther, but somehow he had forgotten his brother doesn’t have feelings.

He sits back down.

“You’re not getting—,”

“Are they loud?” asks Vanya. Her preteen voice is small, but she sounds confident. She had never interrupted any of them before. Klaus wants to be proud, but she chose a very inconvenient time to stand up—at least for him. Allison is smiling proudly and Five doesn’t look all that annoyed that she had cut him off, so she continues. “If you can see them, then you can probably hear them, too.”

Klaus feels small. His siblings assume a lot of things about him, but they don’t tend to ever nail anything. Vanya was skirting the issue, but he could see it in her eyes; could see her imagining sad people talking to him at all hours of the day. There are two ghosts currently in the waiting area of the store, sobbing horrendously in the corner. They’re probably bleeding all over the floor. He focuses on them, the sound of them, the way they sound eerily familiar to each other. Must be related. He thinks of them and he thinks of the pounding in his ears and he thinks of the way they will eventually notice him like they always do and walk straight through his siblings to cry at him. He tries to think of a way to spin it in a funny light, but he can’t.

“Yeah.” is all he can say. “They’re… they’re so loud, Vanya.”

Ben takes one of his hands from across the table. It used to—or it will, he can’t figure out tenses yet—say “ _ HELLO _ .” Ben looks immensely proud of him.

Five seems to be recalculating in his head. “If it’s disrupting our meetings and your life, then we should figure this out.”

“Can you tell us more about your p-power?” Diego calls, sounding less abrasive than usual.

It’s the first time anyone’s ever asked.

“Ah, but I wouldn’t want to bore you! I’m sure there’s far more interesting things I could talk about in regards to my beautiful self. Did you know I’ve been to Puerto Rico? Neither did I until a past spanish lover came across me in a barber shop a few blocks from here! I’m sure it was… a…” Ben lets go of his hand. “... great time,” he finishes lamely.

“We want to hear it, Klaus. And I’m sorry that we don’t already know.” Allison looks legitimately upset.

Klaus searches for any sense of annoyance between his siblings. Luther beside him is smaller than usual, abdicating his throne as leader for a minute. He’s been getting better at that recently; letting others take the helm when they don’t need to fight. He appears a bit distrustful, but he’s listening. Diego is giving him one of the same looks he gave when he was at the veteran’s bar. He desperately wants to help but he can’t even tell what’s wrong. Allison is holding herself back from reaching out to touch him. She won’t look anywhere else but in his eyes. Vanya smiles distantly, encouraging him. If anyone would get it, she would.

Ben looks resigned to his brother’s silence, which is worse than any of the rest of them.

So instead, Klaus speaks.

“I can’t make them go away. I know you all think I can, but the only way for the corpses to leave me alone is drugs. Since I’m sober now, I see them all the time.” Klaus stares at his hands; at the spots where his tattoos used to be. “Reggie built his mansion next to a graveyard. We’re the closest building to it, so they wander over at their leisure. Cover everything in ghost blood. Looks like a sexed up motel room under a blacklight, but all the time in all the lights.” The sobbing girls in the corner sound like they’re no longer in the corner. “I don’t know what they want from me. They just  _ yell _ all the time and they won’t  _ shut up _ ! It’s not usually so bad, but rooms in our house can get up to around fifty ghosts having a little screaming party or whatever. I had no idea people could be so loud.” The last sentence comes out too quietly for his comfort, more of a whispered confession than a factual declaration. He clears his throat. “They don’t like you guys, so they scream louder when you’re around. I can’t hear you over that, so I zone out and stuff.”

He won’t dare look at the rest of them, but Ben is beaming at him past his sad eyes. He takes Klaus’s hand back.

“They… they bleed?” asks Allison, voice muted.

Vanya is breathing heavily.

“Fifty?” Five sounds sick.

“What do you see now?” Luther asks, and it’s a question he can actually answer, so he latches onto it.

“There’s two girls right now,” he says, detached, “but probably more in the back. Looks like a grease explosion. The one on the right is dripping her face off. What’s left looks all mottled, like someone made it out of Play-Doh and then smashed their hands all into it. Her eyelids are burnt shut, so I don’t think she can see me. The other one is leading her around; her daughter, probably. Looks sixteen, maybe seventeen? Her arms are more like twisted red string on bone with little flesh sprinkles for accents. The rest of her is fine, though. I guess she’s a little pale, but that’s just being picky.” Klaus stares the younger one in the eyes. “They’ve been crying since we got here.”

Klaus wishes Five had ordered before they sat down, because he could really do with a milkshake to fondle instead of waiting uselessly for his siblings to find something to say to him.

“That’s certainly… a change in our perspective of your powers.”

“Understatement of the fucking year, Five.”

Five looks at Diego and then back at Klaus. “Yeah. It is.”

While trying to get over the total shock of Five displaying an emotional range (and about  _ him _ , no less), he stumbles even further when Luther wraps his arm around him in a side-hug. Klaus feels like a teddy bear; his arms held slightly upwards at an awkward angle and his wrists draping limply. Allison reaches around the table and joins the hug, along with Ben. Diego looks too distressed to really touch anyone right now, but he appreciates the thought at least. Vanya nudges his ankle.

“We’re gonna figure this out.” she says, resolute.


	2. Temporary

“He likes baths.” says Ben into the silence on the ride home.

Klaus looks incredulously at him. “Does anyone not? My veins might be fucked but my skin is clean as hell!”

“No! What I’m saying is that the sound gets muffled under the water currents, right?” At Klaus’s confused stare, he continues. “You take baths all the time when you’re ‘too sober to live,’ so that’s probably what it does. That means that ghost sounds can be treated like normal sounds. If we can replicate the effects of the water—,”

“We can muffle the sounds of the dead.” Five interrupts. “That’s a start, Ben.”

“That’s not the whole issue, though.” Allison frowns at her siblings. “They still… look… the way that they do. We need to figure out how to make them go away for a bit. Even if he can’t hear them, they’re still there.”

“Plus, then he can’t hear  _ us _ .”

“These are all great points, but what you’re neglecting to mention is that we don’t  _ have _ any other plans. Please, don’t try and hold the peace if you do!” Five peers around at the faces in the car, unimpressed. He settles back down, hands pitched. “I’m so glad we’re all feeling helpful today.”

“What are we gonna do, then?”

“I think most of what we’re hinting on falls onto the back of a sensory deprivation chamber, so we can try that, first.”

Klaus is almost certain Five says more things, but the buzzing in his ears blocks him out. He remembers the blackness and the silence that comes every time he acts out in front of his father. All he can see is the blurry blue lights of the lithe ghosts in front of him, dreaming of tearing him to shreds. He knows that’s what they want because they tell him so; scream it into the night like he screams to be let out. The only difference between them, really, is that Klaus can recognize when actions are futile, so he peters off. He imagines what it would be like to go into that situation willingly, imagines what it would be like if it doesn’t work and he can still hear them. It makes him sick, so he takes deep breaths like Ben taught him to and tries to count the stoplights Diego runs.

“No.” Ben’s voice catches him off-guard. “Find something else.”

“It’s the best choice we have, Ben! It would only be temporary; just a way to train—,”

“He already trains that way and it doesn’t work. For the love of god, when I say to try something else, just do it.”

Klaus is going to buy Ben a new book the next chance he gets.

“What?”

“I’m sure Klaus would love to tell you all about it.”

Klaus is no longer going to buy Ben anything ever again in his life.

“For the record, I would, in fact, despise doing that.”

He looks to his siblings for support and finds that yes, he is eventually going to talk about his training with Dad. He groans and slams his head onto his knees, feet resting on the dashboard of the car. Diego definitely wants to say something about the cleanliness of it all, but it’s Dad’s, so it’s Klaus’s moral obligation to vandalize it. He smears his grimy shoes all over the wood, just to spite everyone.

Before Diego can beat his ass, Klaus jumps out into the driveway as they park and skips back inside. He kicks a pair of slippers Five had abandoned in front of the stairs a little bit to the left, just enough that he thinks the boy would notice. Hey, Five kind of did offer to lock him up, so it’s only fair.

“He wasn’t going to lock you up, asshole.”

“I’m sorry, what was that? Was someone who isn’t my brother speaking to me?” Ben looks like he’s going to say more, so Klaus points exaggeratedly to his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he drags out the words, just to be annoying. “I don’t talk to anyone less than a ten.”

“Stop talking to yourself, then.” Diego passes by him, like he just gave a radical burn or something. He totally didn’t and Ben can fuck off with his laughing ass.

Klaus pouts his way into the study, where he figures Five and Luther are going to want him. They were never ones to put off tomorrow what could be done today, or whatever bullshit Father liked to spit at them when he told them to train on broken ankles and collapsed lungs. If Vanya doesn’t write her book in this timeline about how much papa dearest sucks, then he’s sure as hell going to.

Sure enough, Five blinks in with arms full of supplies and commands Klaus to sit on one of the couches.

“One day you’re going to tell me to do something and when I don’t do it, you’re going to realize what a good brother I’ve been all along.” Klaus swings his legs over the armrest.

“This morning when I told you to stop painting your nails at the breakfast table, you licked me.”

“It was super gross! Take a shower for once, huh?”

Five lets out a shaky, angered breath, but elects to ignore the medium in favor of setting up the equipment. By the time the rest of his siblings have piled in, Five has assembled some headphones, a lot of water bottles, and some other miscellaneous things that Klaus couldn’t bother to be interested in. Everyone sits on the floor around him, which is definitely not the usual procedure of sibling gatherings.

“What’s all that for, Five?” asks Vanya, taking her turn on the only brain cell in the room.

“This,” Five gestures towards his pile of goodies, “is an attempt to muffle a select sound source. To explain:,” the boy slides to the end of the table and waves a small microphone through the air at them, “Only certain sounds can enter this microphone. We all know that Hargreeves has our rooms bugged with video and sound, but he never mentions hearing the ghosts from Klaus’s audio output, because he definitely would be using that in our training if he could. This means that microphones are ghost-proof, or at least, I’m banking on it. So if we can make Klaus only hear the sound waves that register in the microphone, then we get rid of the ghost sounds altogether.”

“Hell yeah,” adds Ben. “How are we going to do that?”

“That’s where the two pairs of headphones come in.” Five shoves a pair of earbuds at Klaus and keeps the thick headphones for himself. “The microphone will be hooked up to those earbuds Klaus is holding. It gives him his hearing back, at least enough that he can tell what’s going on around him. These headphones are just to muffle the sound, so they’ll go over top. Since we’re not using the electronics inside, I want to fill that cavity up with water so it can dilute the outside noises.” He glances at Klaus. “It’s not a solution by any means, but if the ghosts get too loud, you can at least block them out for a few minutes.”

Klaus notices that he’s beaming. He would stop, just to get the satisfaction of pissing off Five, but Five is actually not being a shithead for once. “Thank you.”

Five begins to look a bit constipated, which means he’s struggling with emotions of some sort. He clears his throat and clasps his hands together. “Now, this only comes alongside training. If you stop working on blocking the ghosts out by yourself, then I’m absolutely going to take the headphones away.”

“Naturally.”

“This is a warning, Klaus.”

“Isn’t everything, when it comes to  _ moi _ ?”

Five rolls his eyes and snatches the earbuds back to begin tinkering on them. Klaus blocks out the five corpses in the room in favor of humming some pop song that wouldn’t come out for a few years yet. When he reaches the bridge, Luther coughs.

“Ben mentioned something about training?”

Klaus opens his eyes again to find all of his siblings staring at him expectantly, save for Allison, who’s punching Luther in the bicep.

“He sure did!” Klaus shuts his eyes again and continues the song.

“Klaus.” Ben growls.

“Ben~!” The medium winks at his brother before sitting up properly, legs crossed on the sofa. This is going to be a very long conversation. “Now, kids, when a bastard loves power very much, he adopts seven children he doesn’t want. It’s simple math!”

“Skip the theatrics, Klaus.” Diego moves to help Five with the placement of some wires.

“I’m getting to it!” Klaus pouts. “Anyway, I doubt the man ever read a parenting book in his life, so he is very much unaware that you’re not supposed to traumatize your offspring. Since he’s a bad fucking guy, he chose to do explicitly that.” He rubs his fists into his eyes, white fireworks reminding him of the designs of his missing tattoos. “While I will talk a lot of shit about Reggie, you’ll never hear me say that he isn’t talented at mentally scarring people.” The white color of the ceiling burns his retinas, but it’s better than the darkness. “I think he woke up one morning, asked himself, ‘What’s the place that’ll fuck my useless son up the most?’ and then decided that I’ll spend more time in there than out of it.”

He feels a hand on his and looks down to see Vanya. She knows how he feels, doesn’t she?

“There’s a mausoleum,” he hears a sharp intake of breath from beside him, “behind the house. Maybe, what, thirty famous dead guys all chillin’ inside? They don’t get to roam around because of the stone walls, so they’re super pissed all the time. I doubt they’re really even human anymore. If you could find the opposite of Ben’s beautiful dead self, it would probably be the mausoleum ghosts.” He hums the next bar to the song Luther had interrupted. “Fail a mission? Mausoleum. Flinch at a ghost? Mausoleum. Flinch at  _ Dad _ ? Mausoleum. Accidentally rock eyeliner on television? Definitely mausoleum. Wear mom’s heels and break your face? Mausoleum with your mouth wired shut so you can’t even scream.” Klaus lets out a humorless laugh. “For all his faults, Papa sure is a predictable old geezer.”

Five has stopped working with the headphones, instead choosing to stare at Klaus, vibrating with hatred. Vanya hides behind her hair, sniffing every few seconds. Luther is working on reconciling the image of their father Klaus had presented with the one he believed. Allison gapes at him in shock, hands over her mouth. Diego’s back is to him, but his shoulders heave out thick breaths. Ben winces at the floor, biting his lip. He knew this already, but Klaus had never said it out loud when he wasn’t high off his ass.

“Do you… Um, does he still…?”

“I mean, I  _ did  _ break a plate last week.”

Diego lets out a battle cry and lodges a bottle cap in the far wall. “I’m going to fucking rip his insides out!”

Ben hums and crosses his legs. “I’ve had my insides ripped out and I can tell you that it doesn’t hurt nearly enough for that dick to get what he’s earned.”

“We could have done something,” mourns Vanya.

“He’s our dad,” Klaus says flippantly, having already accepted the facts. “Nothing to be done.”

Five punches a fist down on the table, cracking the intricate finish. “Fuck that.” He hunches his back and curls his fingers into the splintered wood. “I spent a  _ long _ time writing equations in ash just to figure out how to get back to you all. Now I’m here and it doesn’t mean anything because nothing fucking  _ changes _ . I’m old enough to know when I should say ‘fuck this shit’ and I know I’m right to say it now.” Klaus looks him in the eyes when he turns back around and sees fire burning there. “Fuck this  _ shit _ .”

“Are you changing the timeline?” Allison sounds afraid of the prospect.

“The Commission can burn in hell right alongside Hargreeves.”

“Aw, you would give up your precious timeline just for lil’ ol’ m—,”

“This isn’t a  _ joke _ , Klaus! Do you see how fucked this is?”

Klaus quirks a brow and kicks his legs out. “It’s just what passes for normalcy around here, kiddo.”

Vanya grabs his cheeks and glares up at him from the floor. Her eyes droop with an aura of  _ been there, done that _ . She glows white. “I know normal,” she says to him, fingers clenching with how hard she’s trying to get him to believe her. “This shouldn’t be it.” She lets her hands drop from his face to his sides so she can lean up and give him a hug for all her body is worth. It’s the second hug he’s gotten today, which is two more hugs than he remembers getting his entire first childhood. His hands rest awkwardly a few inches from her back.

“We’re not letting this happen again.” Allison decides, which means that’s how it’s going to go.

He feels pressure on his head and looks up to see Ben holding his new headphones over his ears. It sounds like waves and static. “We’ll figure out what to do later.” Ben posits, moving to sit next to Klaus on the couch. His words come out a little muffled, but there are no screams of his name or moaning undertones to the saying at all. “But for right now, all we can do is listen.” He gestures at their family, each one looking affected by Klaus’s problems in some way. “I always told you they would.”

Klaus hesitantly moves his hands up to clutch at the headphones, pulling Ben’s words tighter to himself. He searches for a witty comeback but doesn’t find one.

Instead, he digs his face into Vanya’s shoulder and sobs, because he can finally hear it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You cannot stop me on my quest to get the Hargreeves to actually communicate with each other.
> 
> This is the first time I've written fanfiction since I was 11, so the fact that people seem legitimately interested had me hole up in my room for a few hours just to smile into my hands. You guys have made my month, seriously. :)  
> I'm already working on a few other stories because this one has been so fun, so expect those soon! If you have any ideas for prompts, I'd love to take them. You can reach me on Tumblr at papayaromantic! I'm starting college soon, so I need something to break up the monotony of applying for scholarships.  
> Thank you all again, seriously. I haven't been this happy in a long time.


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